Dear Alice Ott Student, Parent/Guardian:

Our theme this year is “Never Give Up.” We believe in the potential for all students to succeed and our goal is to encourage them to achieve in spite of all obstacles that come their way. Please remember it is our desire to involve students’ families as partners in their child’s education. We believe this increases academic achievement and creates a better atmosphere for learning and development of each student.

Our mission at Alice Ott is “To provide a safe, challenging, and supportive environment where students are prepared with the fundamentals for success in high school and beyond, developing them into responsible citizens and critical thinkers.” Therefore, we are excited to announce to families the following academic achievements from last school year:

• We are one of twenty-seven schools recognized by the state as a “Model” School, which means we were in the top five percent of the highest performing and/or highest academic growth Title I schools in the state of Oregon. This is a great honor considering there are approximately 600 Title I schools in the state. We were the only middle school to receive this honor.

• We are #6 out of approximately 191 total middle schools in overall rating. Only 7 middle schools in the state received over a 90% rating and we were one.

• We tied for 10th in math achievement growth of all schools in the state including all elementary, charter, magnet, middle and high schools.

• We are #1 in math achievement growth of all middle schools in the state. We are #25 in reading achievement growth of all middle schools in the state. We received a level 5 rating in both math and reading growth, which is the top rating you can receive.

• We were one of eighteen schools statewide nominated by the Oregon Department of Education for the Celebrating Student Success Award because of our significant growth in achievement over the past several years.

• Our overall reading achievement went up another 5% to 81% based on previous year-to-year state cut scores. This is an increase of 26% over the past four years. The state changed the cut scores last fall, which raised the bar for passing the reading state test. Even with this higher standard our school had 74% of our students meeting or exceeding benchmarks.

• Our overall math achievement went up another 14.6% to 76.5% based on the new higher standards adopted two years ago. We have also increased the number of students taking pre-algebra in seventh grade and algebra in eighth grade.

• Our attendance remains over 94%, which exceeds state standards.

Here are some brief highlights of some things you will notice at Alice Ott during the 2012-13 school year: